Variety from Vermont and the Valley of Weird
This last week, Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the primary race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. President. I don’t agree with many of his policies and ideas, but there is one thing I really like about him. He generates concepts and political ideas that are very different from others. That is refreshing. Again, not that the ideas are good (from my perspective) but that those ideas are different.
In today’s society, we are witnessing what could be called political stagnation and severe hesitance when it comes to sharing and generating new ideas by our civic leaders. Policy makers are too often offering up suggestions that will keep them in power to “get the votes” instead of what’s best for the largest number of people.
On numerous design and research teams, of which I’ve been a part, I’ve grown to appreciate the one student or colleague who shared an idea during a meeting that was way out in left field, was way outside the box thinking, or was completely at odds with the data. However, that idea sparked a conversation, a clarifying question and answers session, and caused us all to tweak our viewpoints just enough to start looking at things differently. The idea shared wasn’t a quality suggestion initially (or ever) but it was necessary for us to find the quality answer. We had to walk through the valley of weird to arrive at a better destination. The ideas and assumptions that were most definitely outliers helped us correct, redirect, or calibrate to more reasonable or cost effective solutions. The manifestation of an unusual concept made us move, sometimes further away, and sometimes closer to it. Regardless, the final result was always better. We benefited from a high variance concept.
Having the variety provided by this Vermont Senator is a healthy thing even if none of his policies are ever implemented. We need variety in the political design space just as much as in a product design space. If there was more variety, we would know a lot more about what’s possible and why one idea might be good and why another idea might be bad.
For example, right now we’re currently fighting to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people are understandably annoyed at the ever changing policies and the obvious differences between strategies implemented in different states and nations. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent plan. What one state does another follows two weeks later. What one leader suggests, another leader balks at. The decisions about what is essential employment, should we wear masks or not, can we make our own masks, should we close borders, should we contact trace everyone through cellphones, should we test everyone no matter what their symptoms, when should we reopen businesses, etc. are all questions that must be explored to completely cover the full strategy space. Had we tested out a variety of responses to past flu outbreaks, we might know today what would be the best course of action. In fact, the United States is uniquely set-up for such a variety of experiments. Consider for a moment, during last year’s flu cycle, if Ohio implemented a social distancing policy of 6 feet and Indiana required only 3 feet (or 4 feet), we might know the impact this has on the spread of disease. What if Alabama tested contact-tracing and Mississippi tried out daily contact self-reporting? What if New York’s residents are required to wear masks for two weeks but Chicago residents aren’t? What if everyone arriving at the San Francisco airport had to have a test regardless of symptoms? What if a state closed their borders down to all out-of-state traffic for a week?
Now, you’re probably thinking: “That’s crazy, John! No state would close their border or require social distancing for the annual bout of influenza!”
And you’re probably right… But I got you thinking about it. And that’s the power of variety. Experiments, or at least ideas, from everywhere across the design space can be a healthy thing to consider. Walking through the Valley of Weird and seeing some different things is a smart trip to take.
If all 50 states did something different, and shared lessons about their successes and failures, we’d probably know exactly what to do the next time instead of simply reacting and being two steps behind COVID-19. Unfortunately, right now is “the next time” and we still don’t know what to do exactly. We didn’t have a variety of strategies considered beforehand - we’re still shooting in the dark.
However, there are some outliers in the world contributing some variance to the pandemic responses. South Korea and New Zealand’s responses are generally viewed as different from the rest. The world is, kind of, following their example. When things settle down I hope we benefit from the lessons learned by all countries that acted quickly AND by countries that didn’t!
Well, back to Bernie. He, by himself, is not the sole source of weird ideas and policy variations. More likely, he is the public face of countless ideas generated by his staffers and campaign supporters, which is also incidentally a good reason for you to write your own senator and share ideas with him or her. You might not have access to all the right data or have time to read everything on a topic, but your weird idea can spur something in the mind of someone else that causes an eventual better outcome completely different from your own original concept. For that we should be grateful and politically engaged.
The lesson I take away from this: let’s all be a little slower to immediately reject the idea from a friend, co-worker, or family member. They might be completely wrong but that doesn’t mean their thought, suggestion, or idea is useless. It might end up being exactly what the project (or you) needs to consider and, at the same time, exactly what should not be implemented on the project or in your own life.
